On the same weekend that my colleague Vladimir Vukićević was wondering about exactly how secure transactions happen over the Internet in South Korea, South Koreans gathered together to discuss the future of the web in Korea and how Korea’s domestic ActiveX problem (discussed in a previous post of mine) could be solved.

Mr. Channy Yun gave Firefox-based presentation using S5 and tab browsing. He spoke Firefox has played important role in emerging web as like Web 2.0, Ajax and IE 7 and user-driven innovation based on GreaseMonkey and Extensions. He emphasized Mozilla is open source community to lead Web as public resources in view of the neutral platform. It means that its activities are for all browsers not just Firefox. Also he introduced Firefox 3 supporting off-line application platform, Javascript 1.7, SVG and CSS3. Also some of useful HTML5 spec. of WHATWG were very impressive for web developers.

After the presentations by the speakers, there was a panel discussion on the Korean status quo including:

. . . domestic Active X issues and how to solve that problem. All agreed that alternative technologies must be offered and the social and legal changes are essential. According to postscripts of attendee in blogosphere, they could recognize the trend of global web technology and the way for Korea to go in future.

When I came away from Korea last November, having seen the situation first-hand, I was not optimistic. Now, having read Channy’s report, where the attendees and the Korean blogosphere recognize that technology is not the core problem (it may have been initially) but that social and legal changes are critical, I am more hopeful. It doesn’t mean that any future transition to a more standards-based system will be easier, but it’s a recognition of the fact that social and legal changes are as important, and often not as easily implemented, as technology solutions.

I think that a truly open web (where no one is restricted by the operating system or web browser one chooses) in Korea is still a few years in the future, but that goal is now more clearly visible, tangible to the people who want it.

Finally, I’d like to thank Channy, the tireless promoter of web standards in Korea and the main localizer for Firefox in Korea. It is people like Channy who make the Mozilla community so amazing.

(Mar. 8, 2007, Seoul, Korea) The Global Web Technology Workshop will be held by the Future Web Forum (FWF) on March 16 at the Textile Center Bldg. in Samsungdong, Seoul, Korea. The FWF is a web expert group for the adoption of global web technologies and standards within the Korean web industry. The FWF consists of experts with over10 years of experience in Microsoft Korea, Apple Korea, Opera Software Korea and Web Standards.

This event is officially supported by Microsoft Korea, Mozilla Corporation and Opera Software Korea. In this workshop, Mr. Channy Yun of the Mozilla Korean Community will speak about Firefox 3 and rich web applications as well WHATWG activities. Mr. Goodhyun Kim of Microsoft Korea will speak about Windows Vista and WPF/e. Mr. Suyong Wang of Apple Korea will explain the Safari Browser and the difficulties Macintosh users have on the Korean web environment. Finally Mr. Manyoung Cho of Opera Korea will introduce the Opera browser, Opera Widgets and Opera’s web standards evangelism efforts.

In a panel discussion, these experts will discuss the trends of global web technologies and the Korean situation caused by ActiveX incompatibility issues on Microsoft Windows Vista after each presentations. They will become this issue in view of outsider and global terms show screen casts of examples in internet banking and e-governments site in abroad.

This event will be helpful to explain global standards and the abnormal situation of the Korean Internet to decision makers in the Korean government and the Korean IT industry. The event is free. Those interested can register at http://event.futurewebforum.org. (Mar. 7, 2007)

Wonderful news from France. Europe is pushing open source much more aggressively than anywhere else in the world.

Starting in June 2007, 1,154 desks will feature Linux-based PCs. During the latest IT update for parliamentary assistants, the National Assembly decided to switch from Windows to Linux, allowing the 577 parliament members to switch to non-proprietary software for the first time.

…

As well as using the Ubuntu software, the parliament members and their assistants will use Firefox, OpenOffice, Mozilla’s messaging client Thunderbird, and other applications.

The agreement between Lenovo, the world’s third-largest PC maker, and Microsoft replaces a similar deal the Chinese computer maker had with Google, the leader in online searches, to pre-load its toolbar on its desktop and notebook computers.
…
Users will be able to change the settings, but many people tend not to change default settings. The agreement aims to increase traffic to Microsoft’s Web services at a time when Google’s search engine has become a first-stop for many Web visitors.
…Lenovo, which bought I.B.M.’s PC unit in 2005, is the first computer manufacturer to strike an agreement with Windows Live.

I’ve heard (and it looks like) that Komodo Edit is based on top of XULrunner?

XPI extension support provides the same capability as Firefox, with all standard Mozilla APIs based on XUL, XBL, and XPCOM, plus our own for Python and JavaScript. We’re even using this in Komodo development; for example, when adding UDL-based languages and defining custom language syntax-coloring. Other new features, such as the DOM Viewer, are also extensions. If you’ve written an extension for Firefox, you’ll be comfortable writing one for Komodo.

For anyone who is interested in the future of web browsers and web standards in Korea, Mozilla is co-sponsoring an event in Seoul on March 16th which is free to attend.

(Mar. 8, 2007, Seoul, Korea) The Global Web Technology Workshop will be held by the Future Web Forum (FWF) on March 16 at the Textile Center Bldg. in Samsungdong, Seoul, Korea. The FWF is a web expert group for the adoption of global web technologies and standards within the Korean web industry. The FWF consists of experts with over 10 years of experience in Microsoft Korea, Apple Korea, Opera Software Korea and Web Standards.

Comscore has new survey data out on the global growth of the Internet.

comScore Networks, a leader in measuring the digital age, today announced that 747 million people, age 15+, used the Internet worldwide in January 2007, a 10-percent increase versus January 2006. Among the top 15 countries (ranked by penetration), Internet audiences in India, the Russian Federation and Chinaincreased the most in 2006, growing 33, 21 and 20 percent, respectively. China now represents the second-largest Internet population in the world, with 86.8 million users, after the U.S., which rose 2 percent year-over-year to 153.4 million users age 15 or older in January 2007.

also…

As a measure of engagement, comScore also analyzed the top 10 countries ranked by average hours online per visitor for January 2007. Canada led the list, with the average user spending 39.6 hours (and 41.3 hours/ month among broadband users) online during the month.

Ken over at 世論 What Japan Thinks has a short piece covering a small survey of 330 Japanese Internet users. In short, 90% of those surveyed use Internet Explorer and 25% are using IE7. It’s always nice to get any browser share information as it’s not covered nearly as often as it is in other locales (Xitimonitor.com in Europe and NetRatings in the US.) I’d prefer to see data that is aggregated from server logs (vs. user surveys as we have here, which are more inaccurate.) We still have more work to do to get the word out about Firefox in Japan.